


Deserving

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caring John Winchester, Character Death Fix, Episode: s09e10 Road Trip, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where John comes back to life. John's reaction to the situation revealed in "Road Trip".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deserving

"You did what?!" John demanded. Something in Dean's eyes flashed. He remembered the way things had been, the way John had been, that life of never questioning, the one he'd remembered so clearly when it had been just him, Benny, and Cas. He remembered "keeping an eye on Sammy", dad-approved music, no friends to be kept, no school projects that mattered.

And John remembered it all too. There was something about your long lost father bursting out of a closet half a century too late that changed things, that brought closure and offered perspective even as you held his dying moments in your arms. Time travel had healed certain wounds that time alone hadn't been able to, and something had quieted in John in a way he hadn't realized was possible. It was deeper than seeing Sam with a soul again or seeing him again at all, deeper than father and son coming up out of the ground and fighting an angel and learning they'd been saved.

His boys had started the Apocalypse, and still, somehow, it was more incredible to see the father he'd written off as painfully deadbeat. 

"Look," John said. "Look. Just listen. I want you to take the Impala and find a hunt. Anything, I don't care what. Stay away from the angels, but other than that."

"What about you?"

"I'm with Sam."

"You two'll—," Dean started, but John's stern calm stopped the reply in Dean's throat, in his chest. They wouldn't kill each other. Not this time.

"I ran away when he was soulless," John said softly. "I knew before you did, but I couldn't...I just couldn't. I left him to you when he was seeing the Devil 24/7. But this isn't your game, Dean. It _can't_ be your game. You're on the bench, because you _don't_ say yes to angels."

Dean flinched, remembering John's insistence to say yes to Michael.

"You weren't saving your brother. You were controlling him."

Something in Dean flared up in stages, rooting him to the spot, heating up his insides, the steam rising and flowing out in hot speech, "You'd know, Dad! Huh? I'm sure you never told him what to do, what not to do. Lied to him, took away his ability to choose. No, not _you_." He shook, like he was ready to move after all, was ready to take it to the next level, to the punches, the scrabbling, like he never would have before their return from Hell.

Dean had once told John he wished Cas hadn't had room for two.

That had ended bloody. Especially since Dean had been torturing. And wasn't _that_ an awkward revelation. But at least John had been able to help Sam take down that "instructor", in the end.

"No, I'd totally know," John said. Dean looked so much like Mary, that spark, that indignation. And Dean knew it too, now, having traveled back in time. It was John's fault Sam was the way he was, when it all came down to it. He'd died, Mary'd made the first deal, damning Sam to save him without even knowing it.

John wished to hell Mary had been the one to teach him the ropes of what it meant to be a hunter.

"Bobby was good to you. But he's not here. Ellen, Rufus, so many folks aren't here. I'm gonna make sure Sam's okay. You take Crowley and do what you need to do to feel right again. I've got Sam."

Dean stared at his father, lips parted slightly in surprise. 

"He thinks he killed Kevin," John pointed out. Crowley had told him. Crowley told him everything, way too much, things about demon pastimes and Dean's taste in porn and Bobby's naughty bits, enough to faze a man who hadn't been through as much as John had without breaking.

Alone except for the angel lingering in the kitchen area, John knocked on Sam's door, remembering the look on his face when that hunter had correctly blamed him for the death of her family. Remembering the way, "I told you so," had finally died in his throat at the pain he'd seen.

It hadn't mattered, all of a sudden, that he'd warned Sam not to open up to hunters after their plans had gone so awry. He'd hated Ruby, but he'd liked her too, had understood his son's interest in more ways than just the physical, and he hadn't been happy, but he hadn't been like Dean about it. She was just a girl, wasn't she? An unpopular ex-witch with an attraction to Sam that had apparently started when they'd been alone for four months.

He remembered when Sam had had too much to drink and he'd whispered about what the Trickster had done to him, about seeing Dean die. He remembered not having anything to criticize because he was proud of how Sam held up, remembered not having any way to comfort because he couldn't imagine what a hundred days of death would be like to Sam.

He'd always known Sam was strong, but that didn't mean the world was allowed to keep beating him down and leaving him behind, didn't mean Dean was allowed to keep beating Sam down and John was allowed to keep leaving him behind. Dean'd take a break, and John would step up to the plate like he'd been tempted to when he'd seen Sam in that hospital, wasting away in his mind after the deal the rest of his family had made with Death against Cas and Crowley's warnings, against Meg's.

Samuel's smug attitude about how he'd be taking care of his Mary if she were still alive, about how she never should have made the deal to bring John back, that hadn't affected him. It was Sam's own harsh reality, the injustice of so many people blaming Sam for what had seemed like the right course of action. John had never been wrong so many times in his life as he had since he'd come back from Hell to resume it after two hundred years of burning, sick hiatus.

Sam's soulless state had pushed him away, had stopped his sympathy cold, but he'd kept it there, even though the sight of his son's struggle for sanity had affected him. It wasn't until the trials, until Sam's death wish, his need to not let Dean down, to not let John down, that John began to realize that Sam hadn't been happy with Amelia, hadn't been worthy of so much hate from strangers, hadn't been a monster or out of control or anything but _Sam_ , which wasn't such a bad thing. 

Sam fought to prove himself by saving the world with John and Ruby's encouragement, fought against revenge with Crowley's help (and won John over to hell's next king without realizing it), fought to behave while soulless, fought to recognize reality, fought to move on after Dean's loss, fought his own intention to rid the world of his stain.

He wasn't such a bad kid. It was the distrust, the hatred, the...the control that got to John, after he watched it happen for so long.

Because, no, Dean never did seem to have faith in Sam. And that was because John had never had any. Not at first. Cas had learned, and, now, so had John. But as for Dean....

John had built up a picture of Sam needing to be controlled, of Sam being something not to be trusted, not to be understood or nurtured or encouraged, not to allowed to chose its own fate. That was fear. That was all fear, all misunderstanding and grief, and it was all wrong. 

Sam didn't deserve that, though he absolutely thought he did.

John would follow Bobby's example, and Cas's example. He'd follow Crowley's campaign to prove to Sam that he had worth. 

He'd remind Dean why he used to defend Sam, and why he used to put all his extra energy into keeping Sam's hopes up despite the bleakness of their jobs. He'd remind Dean of why he used to earn gifts and admiration and respect from Sam when Sam was too smart for John about people and interactions and his own worth to offer those things to John most of the time.

He'd remind Sam of that worth, of that fight, the necessity he held, the right to live and exist on his own terms.

Or at least he'd try. Time travel had helped him and his own father fix so much damage. Maybe now, after resurrections and demon blood and the Devil, after damaged souls and hallucinations and the Heavenly SATs, he'd reach his son.


End file.
